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Bearded Premna
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Bearded Premna
D Native Photo: Ashutosh Sharma
Common name: Bearded Premna • Hindi: Lammar, Karadi, Bakaar • Khasi: Dieng-phouri • Malayalam: गिनेरी Gineri • Sanskrit: Vasuka • Urdu: Ganhila
Botanical name: Premna barbata    Family: Lamiaceae (Mint family)
Synonyms: Gumira barbata, Premna calycina, Premna barbata var. anodon

Bearded Premna is an erect shrub, sometimes reaching the size of a small tree, 2-5 m tall, deciduous, with grey bark. Leaves are 5-15 cm long, 2.5-10 cm broad, ovate, tapering, obscurely toothed, drying green, becoming hairless above, minutely hairy beneath, with 4-6 pairs of lateral veins; leaf-stalk 1-2 cm long. Flowers are borne in panicles at branch-ends, trichotomous, vinous, short, not exceeding the leaves, 3-6 cm across. Flowers are about 3 mm across, greenish; bracts small, linear, deciduous. Calyx is about 2 mm long, equally 4-lobed, hardly or not enlarged in fruit but persistent. Flowers are 3-4 mm long, somewhat two-lipped with 4, short, spreading lobes, tube about as long as the calyx, hairy in the throat. Drupes are 4-5 mm in diameter, spherical or somewhat obovoid, hairless, somewhat verrucose. Bearded Premna is found in the Himalayas, from Pakistan to NE India and Bangladesh. Flowering: April-May.
Medicinal uses: Villagers, local peoples and various tribal groups in In Uttarakhand, and other Himalayan regions use this plant for treatment of various diseases.

Identification credit: Ashutosh Sharma Photographed in Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh.

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